# Improvement Proposal — Backlog Status Vocabulary

## Proposal ID

EVOLVE-20260603-001

## Scope

upstream-candidate

## Source Project

ai-development-team-agent-pack (Scrum Poker App — Sprints 1–3)

## File To Update

- `./.ai/templates/user-story.md`

## Current Problem

The user-story template has no guidance on what values are valid for story status, and no convention for recording which sprint completed a story. Teams default to ad-hoc labels (`Done`, `To Do`, `In Progress`, etc.) that lose sprint traceability and make it hard to reconstruct what was delivered when.

## Evidence

The Scrum Poker App backlog (`./.ai/project/backlog.md`) used `Done (Sprint N)` and `Proposed` organically across three sprints. When reviewing the backlog, sprint traceability was immediately readable from the status column. No equivalent guidance exists in the template.

## Proposed Change

Add a **Status Convention** section to the user-story template, immediately after the Story/Acceptance Criteria fields:

```markdown
## Status

Proposed | Ready | In Progress | Done (Sprint N) | Deferred

**Vocabulary:**
- `Proposed` — idea not yet approved by the Product Owner for planning.
- `Ready` — meets the Definition of Ready; approved for a sprint.
- `In Progress` — actively being worked in the current sprint.
- `Done (Sprint N)` — accepted by the Product Owner; record the sprint number for traceability.
- `Deferred` — intentionally postponed; record the reason in Notes.
```

## Why This Generalizes

Any project using this template will produce backlogs. Consistent status vocabulary is a baseline need regardless of domain, technology, or team size. Capturing the sprint number at completion is low effort and pays off in retrospectives and audits.

## Benefit

- Agents produce consistent backlog entries without inventing ad-hoc status labels.
- Sprint traceability is preserved at zero extra cost.
- Retrospectives and release notes can be generated from the backlog without disambiguation.

## Risk

Low. This is additive guidance only. Existing stories using other labels are not invalidated.

## Rollback Plan

Remove the Status Convention section from `user-story.md`. No other files are affected.

## Validation

The convention is working when:
- New backlog entries consistently use one of the five defined statuses.
- Agents do not invent alternative labels.
- Sprint numbers appear in `Done` entries after each sprint.

## Product Owner Approval

Approved

## Promotion Decision

Promote upstream

## Applied Date

2026-06-03

## Baseline Version Impact

Patch